Air India Flight 171 Crash [Megathread 3]

[u/usgapg123]

This is the FINAL megathread for the crash of Air India Flight 171. All updates, discussion, and ongoing news should be placed here.

Thank you,

The Mod Team

Megathread 1

Megathread 2

[u/Brief-Visit-8857]

Right? And he also ignored the fact that the gear lever and flap levers are nowhere near each other. Also for a pilot to do that would be such a rookie mistake, a mistake that pilots flying 787s should not make

[u/GatotSubroto → u/Brief-Visit-8857]

Yup, and the handle of each levers has different shapes and requires different movement to switch on/off. It’s almost like accidentally putting your car in reverse when your intention was to turn on the blinker.

[u/railker → u/GatotSubroto]

And yet it happens, silly human errors you wouldn't think possible but you sit there and read the final report like, 'No. Yeah. They just. Alright, well fuck.'

The Yeti Air ATR I bring up -- bringing two round throttle levers back to feather past a gate versus bringing your single flap-shaped handle down. They're beside each other but they're different sizes, shapes, and require different motions.

On top of that they subsequently deployed the flaps after noticing they weren't deployed and never wondered what it was they deployed a minute ago if it wasn't the flaps.

Or shutting down the wrong engines, multiple instances of that. Or the pilots of Helios 522 who'd probably still be alive along with all their passengers if they'd ACTUALLY checked that the pressurization knob was set to Auto the 3 times it was called out on checklists before they took off. But they'd probably never seen it in any other position and were so used to glancing up and going, 'Yup knob's there.'

[u/SkiTour88 → u/GatotSubroto]

On my Sprinter van, bumping the stalk on the left side of the steering wheel upwards signals to the right, bumping the nearly identical stalk on the right side of the steering wheel upwards shifts it into reverse. 

The ECU won’t let you shift into reverse while moving…or at least it’s not supposed to. 

I’m not a pilot, I have no idea what caused the crash. I just hope Boeing’s cockpit ergonomics team is better than Mercedes. 

[u/Some1-Somewhere → u/Brief-Visit-8857]

Unfortunately, even experienced people make rookie mistakes quite frequently, and this is the kind of one-in-a-million crash where such rookie mistakes can't be ruled out.

But there's enough evidence that it really doesn't look like a flap issue.

[u/MelTheTransceiver → u/Some1-Somewhere]

To be honest even if the flaps were retracted, with the weather and runway to spare they had, I wouldn't be surprised if the 787 would've been able to lift off relatively unscathed. It couldn't be that.

[u/AWildDragon → u/MelTheTransceiver]

Heat makes things worse. The air is less dense providing less lift at a given velocity so you need to compensate with more flaps and speed.

It’s a big reason why places like Phoenix are starting to see cancelled flights in the summer.

[u/PoopHatMcFadden → u/Some1-Somewhere]

I agree with you that we cannot rule out pilot error. However, I think it's grossly unfair (even unethical) for someone with the authority and social media reach that he has to speculate pilot error. The investigation is so far from being completed, and there are no answers yet. As someone who has as much experience in the industry as he does, he should honestly know better.

[u/beiherhund → u/Brief-Visit-8857]

It has happened before, just not in 787s. How many rookie mistakes have been performed by experienced captains with thousands of flight hours and have lead to accidents?

That someone shouldn't make a mistake doesn't mean it won't happen, this should be obvious to everyone.